This guide will address the 24-7 news cycle, comprising both mainstream media news reporting and social media based news reporting, and it's effects on American citizens.
The thesis of this guide is to explore the effects of the modern 24-7 news cycle on the mental health and overall social conduct of the modern American.
The research thesis of this guide is to explore how the 24-7 news cycle's integration of social media journalism has caused Americans to be more anxious and depressed than they have ever been in the modern age.
The research questions addresses in this guide are:
Due to both the rise of social media and recent national events such as the pandemic and most recent presidential elections, the state of the modern American news cycle is as poor as it has been at any point in its relatively short history of existence. Social media has helped misinformation spread making it hard to trust most reporting, and events in America over the past few years have made for a news cycle primarily focused on negativity and sensationalism. This research paper sought out to discern how the modern news cycle affects the mental health of the average American news-consumer. The methodology used was a comprehensive search of the current data available in SVC databases and Google Scholar. The data shows that modern news cycles both cause anxiety and PTSD-like symptoms in consumers as well as establishing a negative outlook on the future state of world affairs. Many modern news stories are both negative and misinformed, and the misinformation has been proven to spread much faster than fact-checked stories. When looking at this information there is a clear path forward for future journalists and consumers of news media. Journalism must seek to return to focusing on unbiased reporting while also trying to not sensationalize and not polarize. Future news consumers must learn to both be vigilant fact-checkers as well as deeply conscious of their emotions and the way that what they read and watch is affecting them.
The 24-7 News cycle is described as the constant updates on local and national news that come to Americans in the form of articles, social media updates, and news broadcasts. Though some may consider this to have started before, for the purposes of this research it began in 1980 when Ted Turner launched CNN. CNN was the first 24-hour cable news channel and it fundamentally changed how Americans and the rest of the world consumed news. CNN was instrumental in reporting on massive news stories throughout the 90s such as the Challenger space shuttle explosion, the U.S. invasion of Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm, and the proceedings in the trial of American football star O.J. Simpson. These stories among others cemented CNN and the 24-hour news cycle in American culture. Following the success of CNN, two more broadcasting channels launched shortly after, these being MSNBC and Fox News. These news broadcasts served as the main focal point of the 24-7 News cycle until recent years where the rise of social media has begun to steal some of their shine and cause Americans to get there news from other avenues again. Since it's inception, social media has played a key role in 24-7 news, however, in recent years it's impact on controversial presidential elections and the outbreak of COVID-19 have thrust it into the forefront, causing it to steal much of the spotlight from large broadcasting networks like CNN. This shifting of common news paradigms has not been without issue though as social media has brought with it a mass increase in misinformation, described as false or inaccurate information spread widely, despite whether or not there is the intention to mislead. This spread of misinformation has acted as a disease affecting the 24-7 news cycle as it has also changed the reporting done by mass media news broadcasting channels, who have had to sensationalize the news and polarize audiences in an effort to compete with social media newsmakers. Misinformation brought by social media combined with the lengths news broadcasting channels have had to go to compete with social media have made for a modern news cycle of the lowest quality ever seen in it's relatively short lifespan.
This is a video of Ray Marcano, a well-respected journalist, where he gives a speech pointing out some of the issues with the 24-7 News cycle. He speaks a bit about social media and although he does not use the same language to explain the issues it presents to modern journalism, the points he makes about how Americans should both fact-check everything and stay aware of alternative points of view are very similar to the conclusions drawn in this research. This video serves as a good introduction to the topic as well as offering potential solutions going forward.
Marcano, Ray. "How the 24-Hour Content Cycle and Social Media Threaten Democracy | Ray Marcano | TEDxDayton." YouTube, uploaded by TEDx Talks, 6 Dec 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIbVBUk5tKc.
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